


will you stay with me, will you be my love

by Raven (singlecrow)



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-26
Updated: 2010-09-26
Packaged: 2017-10-12 05:28:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/121299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/singlecrow/pseuds/Raven
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some places the Doctor and River did and didn't have sex.</p>
            </blockquote>





	will you stay with me, will you be my love

_(in the end)_

"Sorry," said the Doctor, quickly. "I haven't done this in a... oh, what are you doing there – in a while. In a long while. Oh..."

River finished tracing a path, fingertip over fingertip, from the tip of his nose, down his chest, into his navel and out again, down towards-

"Oh," said the Doctor, again. "Oh."

"Blushing and virginal, aren't you, Doctor," River said, grinning, and leaned back on the pillows for a moment. She had been wondering, over the years, how and where and when this would be, thinking of grassy fields, toilet cubicles, anonymous hotels, perhaps in a cupboard with Daleks stacked up behind it or in a bunker escaping from Cybermen, or maybe in the swimming pool in the library. Maybe in none of those places, but in the fez.

But in the end, they were in the room the Doctor slept in, when the Doctor slept. There was a silver-backed hairbrush on the dresser, a picture of a woman in a frame on the bedside table, red sheets and red bedcovers, four pillows. The weight of their bodies made solid dips and humps in the mattress, their presence made the TARDIS dim the lights. It made all the sense it needed to make.

"I'll have you know," the Doctor said, firmly, "that I have children, grandchildren, and probably great-grandchildren by now, I'm certainly not – oh. Oh, River." He shivered, with something between confusion and amazement taking shape in his face, and then he seemed to remember how it worked; he reached forwards to push a lock of hair out of her eyes and kiss her, and it wasn't like a first kiss; it had a depth and understanding to it, and River smoothed her hands down the slick, smooth surface of his back and reached to undo-

"Doctor."

"Mmm? What?" He looked so discomfited that she wanted to laugh for a moment. His expression turned swiftly to petulance, and it took all of her self-control not to kiss his parted lips.

River took a deep breath. "Doctor, are you sure – are you sure? I mean, I know you do... because you did – at least, you will have. But that doesn't mean you have to... now. I mean. Doctor, do you want – I mean, do you even understand what I'm trying to say?"

He looked at her, face alight with searching intelligence, and then his eyelashes dropped. Soft, low: "Yes."

And then: " _Yes._ "

 

*

 _(in flagrante delicto)_

The next time was in the year 200,100, during the Fourth Great and Bountiful Human Empire, on stage, when the audience were actually expecting the Face of Boe Pantomime Spectacular.

They stood up and took a bow and managed to explain that they weren't citizens and couldn't be arrested for public indecency, and really, River said later, all the shouting and running and escaping to the nearest handy time vortex might easily have been avoided if the Doctor could just learn to do up his suspenders.

 

*

 _(inchoate)_

"It's the only thing I ever say," the Doctor said, furiously pulling off the bowtie and throwing it at the console. "Don't wander off! Don't, don't go off on a frolic of your own! You could have been killed!"

"That works with your little friends, Doctor!" River pushed the door back and then used her foot to make sure it really slammed. "That works with the humans you pick up and show a good time! Who do you think I am?"

"I don't know, River!" the Doctor yelled. His jacket was coming off, slowly, slipping down his shoulders; frustrated, he yanked it off and threw it to the floor. "Who are you? Tell me!"

"I'm River Song. Don't you ever forget it." She strode forwards, slamming into his personal space, and her hands were on the bare skin on his shoulders and he was pulling at the straps on her dress. "Don't you _ever_ forget it, Doctor."

She undid the buttons on his shirt and pushed him onto the console. His feet lifted off the floor, and his head went back. "We're not finished," he warned.

"We're finished when I say we're finished, Doctor." She leant down, kissed and nipped at his earlobe, let her teeth break the skin on his neck. He hissed and said, "River..."

"Shut up," she said, softly. "Shut up, Doctor, just, just, shut up."

"Make me," he said, and kissed her lips, tasted iron in her mouth. His shoes flew off, and his legs were wrapping around her waist.

"Believe me, Doctor" – and he was smiling up at her now, eyes sparkling, limbs splayed obscenely across the console – "I will. I _will_."

 

*

 _(in motion)_

On Triskellian V, in the weightlessness chamber, with red plush cushions on every surface and the open space full of light. It was the sort of place that got rented out by the hour, and they'd been there for several; they'd bounced off the walls and tried it spinning, they'd swooped with each other through the air like huge ungainly birds.

They were revolving now, slowly, on a plane with the two of the walls that were currently the floor and the ceiling, the Doctor with limbs akimbo and River resting on top of him, leaning her head back on nothing at all.

"I do love you, Doctor," she said, after a while.

The Doctor smiled. "You too, whoever you are."

He shifted as he spoke, pushing River sideways by mistake; she reached to grab his hands and then there was nothing to stop their shared motion turning into long, stately somersaults, over and under each other, hands still held tight.

It took time, like everything. Minute by minute, they slowed down, revolution after revolution, breath by breath. They were laughing as they came to rest.

 

*

 _(in passing)_

"That was lovely, dear," said River, and didn't wait for him to pull out. She pushed him off her and rolled neatly to the edge of the bed. She picked her things off the floor quickly, her dress, her heels, her bag, and smiled to herself briefly in the mirror; they had been at a cocktail party, and it was her very best cocktail dress, slit silver with all sorts of interesting surprises sewn into the hem, with heels that tapped like gunshots.

"River," he said, plaintively, as she let the cold air in.

"That's Dr. Song to you," she said, picking him up by the collar and slamming his head into the wall. Her blaster was in its holster underneath the dress; she pulled it out and pressed it against his neck. "So, what are you? A clone, an android, a Nestene duplicate?"

When he spoke, his voice was harsh, guttural, cogs spinning below it: "How did you know?"

River raised an eyebrow and slammed the butt of the gun into his head. He slumped down on the bed, limp.

"Because it's about time to save the world," River said, thoughtfully, and went to find the Doctor.

 

*

 _(in the presence of)_

The planet Preliumtarn, the thirteen moons dancing seven veils in the sky, in the morning. The Doctor and River were out on the water, on a small canopy mounted on a smaller boat, rocking, hammock-like, below the warming sky.

"River," said the Doctor, blurrily, "did we..."

"Yes, Doctor." River was sleepy, but comfortable, content. She remembered drinking, dancing, the night sky; she remembered the soaring certainty of the decision. "I think we did. I think we are."

"Do you think the universe needs saving, right at this moment?" the Doctor asked, after a while. "Because then I think this is technically a honeymoon."

"Someone else can do it," River said. "Is this true, Doctor?"

"I don't know." The Doctor sounded thoughtful. "Do you mean... will this still be true, when we leave here?"

"Yes" – lightly, as though it didn't matter.

"I don't know," the Doctor said. "I'm never sure about these things. On Earth – well, some of it, anyway – they do it with rings."

"Rings." River thought about that. "What's true, anyway?"

"Shouldn't you know?" the Doctor said, lifting his head. "You're an archaeologist. What's true – isn't it what lasts?"

River looked up at the sky, noting the swift orbital patterns of the moons, seeing in her mind's eye the scoring pattern they would make across the sky the next night, the night after, when at the close of it all they finally burned. "Nothing lasts forever, Doctor. Not even us, not even you."

"We'll last long enough," said the Doctor, firmly. "A long, long time, and long enough."

"Long enough for all the worlds in the galaxy?" River snapped. "Long enough for every ceremony, every ritual, every dance? Long enough for them to dig up our bones?"

Softly, softly, with one hand closing over hers: "Yes."

"I don't think we need to get legally married everywhere," River said. "If we want to part ways, you can have the TARDIS, I'll take the rest of the universe. No need for a messy divorce."

"Yes, but I want to," the Doctor said, petulantly, and nearly upset the boat. "Get married everywhere, I mean, not get a messy divorce. Although we can do that if you want to. You don't want to, do you?

River laughed, and kissed the tip of his nose.

 

*

  
_(in your absence)_

River made tea. Amy had taught her, once, when she had been passing through Leadworth on a rainy day; River had learned to put leaves in the strainer, to put the milk in first. She paced around the TARDIS kitchen while it brewed, and then poured it into one eggshell china cup.

Then she threw the cup at the wall and set out from the console room. The two Atraxi guards opened their mouths to speak and she shot one of them before wheeling around to face the other. "He's stunned," she told him. "I will kill him if you don't tell me where the Doctor is right now."

"Your threats are as nothing to us" – so she stunned him too and strode on. The TARDIS was in the cargo hold of a great, echoing ship, with the joists and girders curving and sinister in distant shadows. There was no one to be seen.

"Well!" she shouted. "Aren't you going to come and get me, then?"

It took a while, but eventually, she heard the sound of marching boots, getting ominously closer. "Took you long enough," she said, and obligingly, they captured her.

"Why did you – I said you should stay where you were!" The Doctor, in his holding cell, looked dishevelled, and there was a little blood dripping below his hairline, but apparently he was well enough to be self-righteous. River let out the breath she'd been holding and went to sit on the wooden bench beside him.

"Yeah," she said, "and you said, I'm just going to look around, won't be a minute!"

"Yes, but," the Doctor said, waving his hands around in frustration, "now we're both stuck in here. They took my screwdriver."

"Amy taught me to make tea. She didn't teach me to drink it." River raised one eyebrow. "I dropped my blaster outside the door, incidentally. It's rigged to explode with great violence in, oh" – she checked – "about forty-five minutes."

"Oh," said the Doctor. "Whatever shall we do, to fill the time."

"I have no idea," River said, and stretched herself out beside him.

 

*

 _(in the beginning)_

In the stillness and the silence, rocking in the dark, amniotic. Slowly, with the Doctor dropping kisses along the length of River's body, on her forehead and her nose and her nipples and the dips of her hips and cheekily, her little toes. River looked at his eyes, made large and black and a little wild,and drew him in, let him go, carried in and out by the turbulence of their motion, and then she laid a delicate hand on his cock and made certain to let him feel the touch of her ring. He turned to face her and grinned, so she kissed him. They had had the practice at this, all the time in the world to learn the lines of each other's bodies so there was no adolescent fumbling, this time, and no slackening of that easy, sensual rhythm, on and in and further in and out and in, and ever on.

"River," the Doctor said, and there was a cut-off urgency in his voice, a distinct note in the sequence of his breathing.

"Sweetie," River said, into his shoulder, taking a moment to delicately lick the hollows at the base of his neck, "you realise you can't..."

"Too late," said the Doctor, and she felt a shudder pass through his body.

Around them, the universe began.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Be My Love (the first and last time remix)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/193243) by [htbthomas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/htbthomas/pseuds/htbthomas)




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